If AMD’s Ryzen 3000 generation made significant strides on the desktop platform, they remained relatively quiet in the gaming laptop arena. However, in 2020, the red team has made even more powerful advancements into the laptop sector. A prime example is the Ryzen 4xxx mobile CPU line.
One of the most notable gaming laptops recently released featuring an AMD CPU is the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15. Specifically, the model tested in this article uses the Ryzen 7 4800HS with 8 cores and 16 threads, paired with an Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti MaxQ GPU and 16GB of RAM.
Design
As usual, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 features an exterior design that is very familiar to fans of Asus gaming laptops. The dark brushed metal casing exudes a strong presence. Unfortunately, in this version, the ROG logo is merely a shiny metal without RGB lighting like the higher-end models.
The interior of this laptop is made from plastic, which, while not as rigid and cool as metal, still feels very sturdy and durable. The wide palm rest and centrally located touchpad provide gamers with a comfortable experience.
The keyboard of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 has a simple, streamlined layout, with a moderate travel distance and good bounce. Combined with the solid base of the laptop, typing and gaming on this device feels quite good. Unfortunately, the backlighting is minimal, featuring only white LEDs instead of RGB.
The touchpad is somewhat ‘fireproof’ as it is quite small, although it operates smoothly and supports multi-touch well. After all, gamers will likely use an external mouse, so this isn’t a major concern.
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 has all the necessary ports for gamers, including USB Type A, Type C, HDMI for connecting to larger displays, LAN port, and a combo 3.5mm headphone jack. These ports are located on both sides of the laptop, making it a bit cumbersome when plugging in a mouse but eliminating the need to fumble around for ports located on the back.
Now let’s open this laptop to examine its internals. The cooling system of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 is quite impressive with 2 cooling fans and 4 heat pipes. We will discuss the temperature and noise levels later – during heavy gaming tests.
Interestingly, this laptop features 8GB of soldered RAM on the motherboard, leaving one expansion slot for upgrades. The test machine already has 8GB installed. Additionally, gamers needing to upgrade storage can utilize the vacant M.2 SSD slot.
Performance
With a very impressive configuration featuring a powerful CPU and a gaming-capable GPU like the GTX 1660 Ti MaxQ along with 16GB of RAM, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 delivers smooth experiences in the virtual world. However, let’s first look at some benchmark results:
3DMark score is also decent.
Next, let’s look at some popular games:
Batman Arkham Knight runs at stable fps, with relatively high temperatures but still within acceptable limits.
CS:GO achieves over 200 fps, allowing for comfortable try-hard gameplay, with relatively low temperatures.
With the hot title WarZone, fps is also quite stable, providing smooth gameplay, but temperatures rise very high.
It is clear that the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 with AMD’s CPU can handle gaming effectively, providing smooth performance without any issues, though the temperature concerns are higher compared to Intel counterparts.
Temperature
At maximum performance, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 can reach temperatures exceeding 100°C at a room temperature of 30°C. However, according to a representative from Asus Vietnam, this measurement is inaccurate due to third-party software not properly calibrating the sensors within the device.
CPU temperatures drop about 10 degrees Celsius according to the ROG Armoury Crate software compared to other standard software.
As for external temperatures, when running heavy games, the area near the display unit heats up quickly and feels uncomfortable to touch. However, the palm rest area remains quite cool, so it does not significantly affect the overall experience.
The noise level of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 is relatively high under heavy loads, which is understandable for a laptop with 2 fans. To achieve high performance, this is an acceptable trade-off.
Conclusion
Overall, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 offers excellent performance in a gaming laptop priced under 30 million VND. Clearly, AMD has made a significant leap by bringing an incredibly powerful 8-core, 16-thread CPU to mobile devices!